Mike Bassett: England Manager a 4-4-flipping 2 RTG

In what might come as a surprise to many, waistcoat loving Gareth Southgate has stepped down as the England manager. Southgate famously led England to the semi finals of the 2018 world cup, and has since been hailed a national hero. His decision to leave however was financially motivated, having been offered a lucrative contract to be a waistcoat model for George at Asda.

The English FA are struggling to find a replacement, and so have appointed Mike Bassett as interim England manager. Bassett recently won the Mr Clutch Cup and is currently the toast of Norwich.

In what is an unprecedented injury crisis, all the current England players have broken their metatarsals, meaning that Bassett has had to call on some veteran England players for the next 5 qualifying games. Some heads may turn at the inclusion of the League one player Stephen Bywater and the League 2 player Adam Buxton. Apparently Bassett's assistant misunderstood the instructions to "buy water, Buxtons!" for the upcoming match.

This is the team selection

Rules

* I must always play 4-4-flipping 2.

* There must always be 2 lower league players (championship or below) in the team that have never been capped at senior level.

* If I draw, I can bring a current international player back from injury.

* If I win, I can bring 2 current international players back from injury, or I can upgrade my 2 lower league players.

* If I lose and I have any current England internationals in the squad, one is injured for the next game.

* The current squad can never be injured, so the worst case scenario is I'm always playing with the initial squad.

* If I gain a promotion, and I have the coins, I can bring an England Icon into the team that can never be injured (got to try and give myself some incentive ).

Format

This will be a story driven RTG where I will try to live and breathe the philosophy of Mike Bassett. I expect to lose, and lose a lot, but that all adds to the reality of being Mike Bassett.

Any suggestions

Is there anything that you would like to see? Any tweaks to the rules for me to consider? I've already made this quite hard, so go easy on me.

5

Comments

It's been a torrid time in the qualifiers for Bassett's England team. Having to pull a load of veterans out of retirement has really shown and England scraped through to Division 6 of the world qualifiers. In the last game, Bassett lost 5-0 with Dybala scoring a hattrick. Bassett faced a lot of unrepeatable chants from the crowd after that game! Things might be looking up though as it's rumoured 2 of the usual line up will be back from injury for the next game.

Results

Drew 2
Lost 3

Top Scorers

Defoe 3
Dawson 1
Cole 1
Lennon 1

Assists

Cole 1
Lennon 1
Barry 1
Rooney 1
Crouch 1

Players back from injury

As it was the division qualifiers, I decided to wait until I completed them to bring back any players from injury. I drew 2 games, so I'll be bringing 2 players back from injury. I will bring in UCL Stones and UCL Smalling because balls over the top were killing me with the slow CBs that I have. Hopefully I'll get my first win now.

I’m taking you up on this. What a great idea! I’m doing it for as cheap as possible, so unfortunately I’ve been transfer market banned. I’ve bought around 70% of the players for around 40k on bid, so with packs I think I can profit off this.

Davies will now be the captain and cannot get injured (thanks @Cadey 5 ). He also makes up one of the lower league uncapped players that always has to be in the team. I'm open to suggestions for the second player...

I did most of it by bidding on silvers for 150 coins non rare and 250 coins rare. 150 for any bronzes, 350 for most golds apart from the non rare ones. I started at around 250k on my second account and I have 213k left without selling everything that I packed (did pack Lloris which brought back 31k). So essentially you can do it super cheap, but I did it over 2 days. It depends on how patient you are.

I'm going to play some games this evening, but before then I'd like to give you the opportunity to vote on my second uncapped lower league player. I've selected 1 from each league for you to vote on. All have 4* skills which is what I was looking for to give me a little chance.